Sophie drew them back as if the theme was, in her view, done with. Almost in a whine she said: “But, bailiff, I must look after my mother. She can’t get up or walk any more, there’s so much dropsy in her legs.”
“Oh, if that is the case, Sophie,” he replied distressed, “then I’ll send the doctor to her tomorrow. He’ll be able to say if your mother requires constant attendance.” The pretty face was distorted by chagrin. “Sophie,” he went on more vigorously, “why are you trying to take me in? First you say you can’t work because of your hands, and then it’s because of your sick mother, and recently your father told me you wanted to go into service again. It’s all untrue. I’ll say nothing about the contract, according to which unmarried grown-up children must work as well; but is it right for you to idle around if everyone else is working himself to death? Is it right for a healthy young girl to live at the expense of her old worn-out father?”
“I don’t live at his expense!” she burst out. Rather more slowly: “I brought money with me from Berlin.”
“Lies, Sophie. Cheating again. We both arrived in Neulohe on the same day, have you forgotten? The dollar was then so-and-so many thousand marks, and now it’s so-and-so many milliards. What can be left of your money then?” She started to speak. “Yes, go on and tell me that you’re selling your jewelry or that as lady help or whatever you were in Berlin you got paid in foreign currency! All lies. No, Sophie,” he said firmly, “it’s settled: either you come to work tomorrow or I’ll put Black Minna with all her children in your father’s house.”
Her face changed, showing impatience, annoyance, then anger. There was something wrong in that pretty face, as if the beauty were only skin-deep and another face might at any moment be seen behind it, a face neither good nor beautiful. She restrained herself, however. She even smiled and she pleaded: “Oh, bailiff, let me off! What potatoes could I dig? Be so kind!” Pagel grew perplexed.
“How much you could do, Sophie, is another matter,” he said woodenly, feeling like Herr von Studmann. “The chief thing is the example.”
“But I’m not strong enough for such work,” she complained. “That’s why I left for the town, because I was too weak for farm work. You feel, Herr Pagel! I’ve no muscles, it’s all so tender.…”
She had approached, brushing against him. She was smaller than he. A fragrance came from her; she moved her arm to show that no biceps stood up. And all the while she was looking into his eyes, meekly, roguishly, pleadingly.
“Those who have to carry the sacks must have the muscles,” objected Pagel. “You only have to gather the potatoes, Sophie—even children can do that.”
“And my knees!” she wailed. “The kneeling will wear them out the first day. See, bailiff, how soft they are.” Her skirt was very short, but she lifted it higher. She patted her garter; he saw a gleam of white …
There went the door! “Put your skirt down!” he ordered sharply.
Yes, that other face now appeared from beneath the pretty one—a coarse face indeed. “Leave me alone! So that’s what you want! No, no!” she shouted and was out of the door, passing Amanda Backs.
Impassively Amanda put down the coffee things on the table. “Your coffee, Herr Pagel.”
“The damnable wench!” cried Pagel, breathing hard. “Amanda, I was to have been seduced here just now!” Amanda looked at him speechless. “Or,” he continued thoughtfully, “it was to look to you as if I were the seducer—that was the idea.” He gave an incredulous smile. “And all about a little potato digging! I don’t understand it.”
“I’d let her be, Herr Pagel,” said Amanda shortly.
“Yes, yes, Amanda, I’ve heard that you wished to put in a good word for her. But why? Is she to get off with her laziness?”
“I’m not putting in a word for her, Herr Pagel. I don’t worry myself about her, and the best thing would be for you not to worry about her either. Your coffee’s getting cold,” she said and left the office.
Pagel watched her go. Some things seemed questionable to him, but he actually had too much to do to try and answer such questions. He’d rather finish his coffee and finally read Herr von Studmann’s letter.
V
A quarter of an hour later Wolfgang Pagel was cycling through the woods. He must hurry, for it was dark at five, and as soon as twilight came nothing would keep Forester Kniebusch in the forest. He gave no explanation. At the first sign of dusk he would leave his men abruptly and go home.
“He’s getting a little cracked,” said some.
“He’s just scared stiff when the forest’s dark,” said others.
Kniebusch let them talk. He himself hardly said a word, no longer listening when something was being said. He didn’t want to know anymore, and didn’t say anything more himself. This change, so astonishing in such an old man, this forsaking of a weakness which he had not been able to overcome in a lifetime, dated from that first of October when he had marched on the fortress of Ostade with a troop of young peasants from Neulohe—to overthrow the Red Government in a big Putsch.
Pagel, noting the gossipy forester’s transformation, had believed that it was due to mortification over the shameful failure of the Putsch. Kniebusch indeed said nothing about the undertaking, but that could only strengthen this interpretation. One had learned enough from the newspapers without wanting personal accounts.
A few sections of militarized associations which had not been disbanded, together with many armed country folk, had appeared in front of the barracks and had summoned the Reichswehr to join in the fight against the Government. The Reichswehr had coldly replied no. In all probability those in the Putsch had held this to be a sort of formality, to save face, and after a brief delay, but hesitatingly, they had proceeded to something like an attack—again in order to save face, apparently. There had been half a dozen or even a dozen shots; the mass of the rebels had ebbed away in disorder; and thus an undertaking to which many capable men had for months devoted all their strength, intellect, courage and self-sacrifice, ended in confusion, rout, a dozen arrests and, unfortunately, two or three killed as well. However, it was a sign of these times, when everything seemed to dissolve—to collapse even as it was being born. The strongest will remained powerless. The idea of self-sacrifice seemed ridiculous—everyone for himself, but all against one.
(That trench jacket which a lieutenant had borrowed from a publican and had almost immediately returned so that it might not be dirtied—that trench jacket was none the less dirtied with soil as with blood.… In vain had the father turned a small beer shop into a respectable tavern. If, however, the lieutenant had not returned the new jacket, would the landlord’s son have stayed away then?)
In this way, or something like it, had the Putsch run its course. It had been a beautiful, splendid dream into which many had thrown their heart and soul—and then it was over, and one could well understand that a man could be bitter and silent about it. But as Pagel came more frequently in contact with the forester and observed, besides his taciturnity, that lifeless yet constantly frightened glance and the perpetually trembling hands—as he reflected rather more deeply on the Putsch and the man—then he said to himself: It is all wrong, it is something quite different. One could easily drive for half an hour through the forest and think of nothing but the forester Kniebusch. A certain slow tenacity in thought could at no time have been altogether denied young Pagel, and if the tempo of recent events had somewhat repressed this characteristic and demanded an almost unreflecting activity, the reaction was all the stronger now that he had to cover considerable distances alone between field and wood. He was not happy only to be active in the world; he wished also to understand it. He was not content to see that the forester was silent and afraid; he wanted to know why he had changed.